Xbox One is selling strong in the UK, but how can Microsoft take over Europe and Japan?

Share This article

It’s only been three days since the Xbox One launched, and we’re already seeing some impressive sales numbers emerging. The Xbox One is available in 13 markets across the globe, and over one million units are already in the hands of consumers. That’s a solid start for Microsoft out of the gate, but can Redmond overcome its troubled past to compete head-to-head with Sony and Nintendo outside of North America?

Microsoft was quick to point out that Friday was the biggest launch in the history of the Xbox brand. In less than 24 hours, the Xbox One sold through over one million units in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand. In comparison, Sony reached that same number in North America alone. The PS4 won’t launch in Europe until the 29th, and the unfortunate Asian market will have to wait even longer for both consoles.

Traditionally, the Xbox brand hasn’t been particularly strong outside of North America. The original Xbox sold roughly 15.77 million units in NA, 7.17 million in all of Europe, and just over half a million in Japan. While the Xbox 360 handily outsold the PS3 in the US and Canada, it didn’t fare quite as well in the rest of the world. In Japan, the PS3 sold nearly six times that of the Xbox 360, and it’s even worse when you include handheld systems. Sony’s PSP outsold the Xbox 360 12-to-1, and the Nintendo DS outsold it 20-to-1.

If Microsoft wants to remain relevant in this market, it’s going to need to significantly expand its presence in Europe and Asia. While early reports are claiming strong Xbox One sales in the UK — especially compared to the languid Wii U — Microsoft still has a lot of work ahead of itself if it wants to dethrone Sony as the gaming heavyweight in the rest of the world.

The fact that the Xbox One launched simultaneously in North America and Europe is a good starting point, but there are a number of business decisions that need to take place before the Xbox brand can explode outside of the US and Canada. First and foremost, Microsoft has to improve its support of mobile devices. Sony and Nintendo both cater to Japan’s love affair with handhelds, but Microsoft is effectively absent. If the Xbox team doesn’t move towards the mobile market, they can kiss Japanese traction goodbye. Redmond recently brought the Halo franchise to phones and tablets, so that’s an encouraging step in the right direction.

After Sega exited the hardware business, there were rumors going around that the Xbox would pick up where the Dreamcast left off. At the time, there were many hopes that Microsoft would be the savior of Sega, and the Xbox would effectively serve as a Dreamcast sequel. Sadly, that didn’t work out. While attempts were made to revive classics like Panzer Dragoon and Phantasy Star on the original Xbox, there just wasn’t enough momentum to get off the ground. Instead, the Xbox remained focused around Western gaming tastes (namely shooters and sports), and the rest of the world remained attached to Nintendo and Sony platforms.

If Microsoft could relaunch the failed Game Room experiment with beloved international classics, that would certainly help ingratiate the Xbox One among Europeans and Japanese. After the surprise success of the Killer Instinct reboot, maybe Microsoft could even persuade Double Helix to reboot another franchise like ToeJam & Earl or Alex Kidd exclusively for the Xbox One. Even with the Metal Gear and Final Fantasy franchises shifting away from Sony exclusivity, it’s going to take much more than that to outclass the PS4.

true story, I bought another 360 due to the first RROD and out of manf. warranty

af

They cant. Its like iOS vs Android, or Mac vs PC. Americans think that there is an actual contest. The rest of the world knows that all of us buy the latter product, except a handful who buy the former. The Xbox vs PS is the same thing. In the US, its a contest (maybe in Europe now as well). But Asia is pointless for Microsoft. The Middle East in particular really, really loves Sony.

Boudou

The Xbox brand has always been strong in North America and the UK.

The worse case scenario for MS is if the PS4 outsells the XB One in US, Canada, and the UK. Meaning that they will likely dominate the rest of Europe and Asia by a fairly large margin (also by the fact that Sony will launch in more than double the countries than MS).

Then again, its hard to imagine that the XB One will fair well in countries outside the US. Most of the functionality such as Kinect and cable-TV pass-through were clearly designed for US audiences. Voice controls aren’t even available in most languages or dialects.

If the delta in userbase becomes large its going to be hard for MS to secure exclusives and gain developer momentum. It seems to me that the priorities for the XB One have been completely miscalculated.

Singh1699

Strong relatively speaking, many many people bought ps3 especially as the price dropped.

Boudou

Well, what is amazing is that the PS3 was able to do so well being that it was launched at $499 and $599 and a year late in NA and a year and half late in Europe.

Most of the mistakes the Sony made with the PS3, MS is making with XB One. Focus away from games, media centric, hard-to-program for hardware, more expensive than rival, etc.

That said, Xbox’s primary dominance is in NA and the UK. The 360 has nearly double the installed base in the US. If the PS4 is able to just get parity it would be dire for MS.

Singh1699

How do they calculate installed base though? If it’s by units shipped, someone on here actually pointed out the high red ring rate and that repair consoles counted under shipped.
I’ve seen more people with ps3 than xbox. It’s like the ps2 days where the brand alone is selling it.

Mirimon

You look for two terms in sales.
Sold-in actually means sales only to the retailer… wal-mart purchases x amount of units, gamestop gets y amount, etc….(which is often simply stated as “sold” like on the commonly quoted wiki page from msft, where they claim to have sold 78 million xbox 360’s globally)

the other term, “Sold-Through” indicates an installment as the sale is effected to the consumer, from the retailer.

now, lets get some perspective.

msft claims to have sold 78 million units. (now 80 million as of october)
BUT.. they claimed only 48 million xbl accounts (this is a total though, which included live for windows, a program being removed, and silver accounts, which is the same thing as not having internet. Actual analysts have put the current xbox live gold account population at 31 million users.. which is not close at all to it’s reported “sales” figures and does not mach the ratio of populations without internet.

it does however coincide with the failure rate of the system, which accounted for some 28-32 million units being replaced. Now.. it really doesn’t matter to msft who replaced them, if it was by the customer (the first 2 years were..) the retailer, or by them through warranty.. it all adds up as a sale to MSFT’s figures…

so the true figure of the install base of the 360 is closer to some 35 million users (roughly 3-5 million people use it without internet access)

conversely, the PS3 outsold the 360 globally… but while being well within the industry standards for failure, and given it’s online population currently estimated to be at over 150 million users, it means nearly every unit sold is to a new customer (a 2% chance of it being an additional unit for the same home).

as for these next gen consoles. well, sony has published hard numbers already, while msft has claimed 1 million sales, but shown no data of it to see how many for each country, and if they actually were sold to consumers. Mind you, they did not sell out of all day one units (only in the US did that happen..) and even if they had managed to sell out of ALL allotted day one units, their supply for day one launch is still 2/3 less than what Sony shipped.

Eriksen Lamela

Well, Xbox are famous among gamers in certain country in Asia. Quite disappointed with MS, because i wanted to get xbox one. Well, this maybe the reason MS faulty that push some asian Gamers to buy PS4 instead of Xbox One. Stupid Move MS

mgrexx

Xbone will ONCE AGAIN be relegated to 2nd place in the UK and will be DOA in Japan!!!!….but it sure can grind coffee beans! LOL!!!

mgrexx

Xbone will ONCE AGAIN be relegated to 2nd place in the UK and will be DOA in Japan!!!!….but it sure can grind coffee beans! LOL!!!

Bksdrama

And the PS4 sure can collect dust. All its been doing since the Xbox One came out. Ps4 just has NOTHING worth playing. Sorry

Bksdrama

And the PS4 sure can collect dust. All its been doing since the Xbox One came out. Ps4 just has NOTHING worth playing. Sorry

Mirimon

except for all them free games…. and a damn good shooter (yes.. KZ sf is actually pretty good, well above any CoD ever played.)…
except for all the movies and tv to watch…

your denial will only make you unhappy.

Andrew schelb

too bad you cant access them right now cuz psn isn’t strong enough to handle a simple launch.

Mirimon

stop using dial-up…

mgrexx

You must be on crack! PS4 has all the best games….and games that won try to take all of your money….ahem Forza!!

Yisa Yussuf

let the xbots wallow in the illusion microsoft has created for them in which they believe the xbone is doing just as good if not better than ps4… come friday that bubble is going to come crashing down to earth and explode in their faces! 1 million sold worldwide.. i would guess about 500,000 were sold in North America and Canada which means ps4 is outnumbering them 2:1 on their home turf… The Console War is Finished and the Japs won!

NorwegianThirtySomething

You’re an imbecile if you believe that. Microsoft successfully wrested the NA market away from Sony several years into the previous generation. Nothing about this “battle” is decided after a week of sales.

Sony has a VERY hard time supplying consoles to the EU market, and Microsoft might pass them simply on availability alone.

New orders of the PS4 in Norway now are scheduled for delivery in January or February in 2014. The story is the same all across Europe. They might’ve “trumped” Microsoft by being “available” earlier on (Xbox One isn’t for sale in the nordic region, for isntance), but it’s not really “available”.

Yisa Yussuf

so the results are in (from sony anyway) and ps4 has outsold xbox one 2:1.. im such an imbecile! i wonder why microsoft hasnt revelaed their sales fugures??? surely if they were better than sony or even close they would be shouting it from rooftops… xbox dropped the ball.. game over

NorwegianThirtySomething

Uhmm… PS4 started one week ahead of Xbox One, remember?

Yisa Yussuf

xbox one launched worldwide a week earlier than ps4… remember… surely they would have had the upper hand, but no. ps4 sold 1 million in north america alone and xbox one sold 1 million worldwide.. its official ps4 is out selling xbox one 2:1 AND they still have a launch in china soon then it will be 3:1 and then releasing in japan will make it 4:1.. why are you defending it so bad?!

herrer

Microsoft is never going to win the Japanese market the Xbox brand is not very popular in that country.

Mirimon

it’s actually really hard for them to pronounce “Xbox” and is simply awkward for them, more so, most of the asian population have no idea what an xbox is.. THAT is how poorly it does in asia.

Mirimon

how can it be said that xb1 is “selling strong in the UK” when there are no actual figures to back that up? The fact that only in the US were day 1 preorders sold out, while all other countries sold no better than 1/2 their allotted amount per store…. the same stores which did sell out of launch day ps4 preorders, which also on average are 45-60 more units per store…..

sold strong? We don’t even know if it sold better than the original xbox in the UK…

Singh1699

Lol 7970 210 at ncix aka r9 290. Gg wp consoles

Mirimon

haha, indeed. And they tend to more fully optimize games for every little bit they can get from the system, unlike our pc titles which can afford to program for a minimum zone and never fully utilize all of my pc…

but then again, Sony did toss a ton of gddr5 in there, which helps make much more headroom in development over the already capped out ddr3.

Sebastian Bartlett

Xbox 360 easily dominates the UK market and is almost neck in neck with ps3 in europe. Not sure if xbox one will outsell ps4 though in asia or europe.

Use of this site is governed by our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Copyright 1996-2015 Ziff Davis, LLC.PCMag Digital Group All Rights Reserved. ExtremeTech is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff Davis, LLC. is prohibited.